Directions

1. Generously coat a large heavy pot with spray oil and place over medium-high heat. Add the onions and fennel and sauté until tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Add oil and heat until hot. Add the garlic and bell peppers and sauté lightly for 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in barley, thyme, marjoram and broth. Bring to a boil, immediate reduce heat to low and simmer until the liquid is almost absorbed, stirring occasionally, 40 to 50 minutes or until barley is tender. Midway through the cooking process, add salt and pepper to taste.

2. When barley is cooked, add spinach, cheese and basil. Stir to blend and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper, to taste.

Makes 6 servings (approx 3/4 cups each.)

Printed with permission from the American Institute for Cancer Research. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) is the cancer charity that fosters research on diet and cancer and educates the public about the results.

Come on people...she took a step in making a recipe and all of you are so negative. If you think it's too much salt, tweek it for your needs, but keep your negative remarks to self. NOT everyone has to watch their salt intake as perhaps you may have to! Just say thank you for recipe or skip it.
- 1/26/11

Good recipe, except for all the salt - use your own no-salt chicken broth, and don't bother adding salt for flavour - the herbs and pepper etc. are more than enough flavours. Also in our home, we use very little cheese - tasted fine without the parmesan.
- 1/22/09

The broth used in the calculations is regular Chicken broth, not Low-Sodium. This would account for the extremely high sodium count. This probably needs to be recalculated with the low-sodium broth.
- 1/22/09

Oh come on, people: stop whining. Not to mention the fact that most of the world is not salt suspecptible and sodium has absolutely no negative impact on their bodies. This is freaking delicious.
- 10/11/12

The recipe is very good. If you are soo stupid that you have to rate a recipe on the salt content, Then PLEASE do not comment at all. We all know how to adjust a recipe for salt and other spices, You DO NOT need to comment on it. Above where I am writing this is this posted "Rate this recipe base
- 1/26/11

I think this looks good (with tweaking). I would use low sodium veggie broth and either eliminate the parmesan entirely or just use it as a finish to the dish, thereby reducing the sodium content considerably.
- 1/22/09